


Fracture Mechanics

by kres



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-19 07:52:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/881319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kres/pseuds/kres
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock knows what he needs. He thought he knew how to ask for it. Maybe he too, had been imprecise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fracture Mechanics

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt by [NoStraightLine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/NoStraightLine/pseuds/NoStraightLine): Blizzard, 221B. So of course there is no blizzard at all :)
> 
> Beta by [KingTouchy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/KingTouchy/pseuds/KingTouchy) and [NoStraightLine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/NoStraightLine/pseuds/NoStraightLine).

John drops to his haunches and begins untying Sherlock’s shoelaces the moment they’re inside the sitting room door.

“Five minutes,” John says. “If you take longer than five bloody minutes, I swear I’m gonna get in there and bloody drag you out.”

Sherlock slides out of his coat. It drops to the floor in a wet heap. He braces his left hand on the wall and tugs ineffectually at his left cuff, swaying while John pulls off his shoes and socks.

“God, your toes are still frozen,” says John. He stands up and looks at Sherlock’s hands. “Ah, shit. Give me that.”

John’s wet jacket is still on his shoulders. Better circulation, he said in the cab. Good metabolism. Easier to restore blood flow to extremities. 

The cab was cold. Everything was cold. John was smiling, but his voice was weak.

John unbuttons Sherlock’s cuffs. Sherlock looks at their hands, notes the small differences in hue and temperature, the dexterity of the fingers. John is recovering faster, but he’s nowhere near optimal yet.

“Come on,” says John, pulling at Sherlock’s soaked suit jacket. “Off you go. Do you need any help in there?”

Sherlock catches his breath. “No, I’m— I’m fine. I’ll manage.”

“Five minutes,” says John, and he drops his own jacket and bends to take off his shoes.

In the bathroom, Sherlock takes off the rest of his clothes, sets the shower to warm, steps in and balances with both hands on the wall. He lets the water beat down his bent neck. His hands hurt. His feet hurt. His calves, his buttocks, the outsides of his thighs all hurt. Extremities and swaths of exposed skin. Too-thin wool, too much water, too low temperature. Too much time.

They wrapped them in shock blankets, after. John insisted on a hospital trip, but Sherlock said ‘No, home,’ and then stood up on shaking legs and went and hailed down a cab.

He had to wait for John to follow and give the cabbie the address, because his brain wouldn’t let him form a coherent sentence. By the time they reached Baker Street, he was shaking so hard he could barely see.

He opens his eyes into the spray. It stings. He closes them again, breathes out. 

They wrapped them in shock blankets. Passive rewarming. Sherlock remembers looking at the back of John’s neck, where the tips of his wet hair were curling over his skin. John was looking away, and then he was looking at Sherlock, and Sherlock remembers John’s face, with colourless lips and drawn eyebrows, and his shoulders, draped in the orange of wool and the white of the falling snow, and he wants to vomit.

“Sherlock.” A rap on the door. “Time’s up.”

“Yes,” says Sherlock, into the spray. Water flows into his mouth. Snow, heat, cold. The orange blanket on John. He turns off the water.

John brushes against him in the doorway. Wet undershirt and briefs. Cold skin. Sherlock has wrapped himself in towels, one around his waist and one over his shoulders. His hair is still dripping.

“Kettle’s about to boil,” says John, pulling his undershirt over his head. Shivers are racking his body. Sherlock notes the frequency, the strength – they’re non-threatening. John closes the door to the bathroom.

Sherlock wanders into the kitchen. The floor is cold. He needs socks, but his body is too heavy, and the bedroom is too far away. He leans against the counter, watches the bubbles rise and burst in the kettle. One minute. Forty-five seconds. Thirty seconds.

He held out for a minute and a half. Open eyes, bubbles breaking the surface above his face. His hands, clutching, tearing at clothes. The cold water closing like a vice around his head. The incessant count in his brain. Perhaps it sped up, a little, there at the end. He can’t tell.

The kettle shuts off with a click. John has set the cups out, put the teabags in. Sherlock pours the water.

In the sitting room, he draws the blanket off the sofa and wraps it around his shoulders, on top of the towel. Layers. Passive rewarming. Sherlock needs more than a blanket. He kneels down at the fireplace, arranges the kindling.

John takes longer than five minutes. The clock in Sherlock’s head ticks over to eight by the time he has the fire going. The tea has over-brewed by now. Doesn’t matter. Sherlock crouches by the fireplace for a little while. The fire warms the flat in concentric circles, weaker and weaker as one moves away from the source. Too close, and he’d burn, but he doesn’t have to move away very far to be cold again.

Sherlock needs more than the fire.

He stands up and goes into the kitchen, dragging the blanket behind him. The tea has indeed over-brewed. John is still in the shower. John’s wet jeans are slung over the back of the chair. His wallet is on the kitchen table.

John was looking away, and then he was looking at Sherlock, eyebrows drawn. Body, stretcher, bag. Gun thrown by the wayside, disappeared into the dark water. They will comb the river, they will find it, they will match the bullet to the body, and the license to the hand. Jeremy Huller, police officer. Serial killer.

Serial killers, always hard. But always something to look forward—

Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut.

The tensile strength of human skin is twenty megapascals. Human hair – three hundred and eighty. Bone – one hundred and thirty. An average human being can hold their breath for forty seconds while underwater. Less if they are being actively drowned. Water reaches its highest density at four degrees Celsius. Hypothermia occurs if the core temperature of the human body drops below thirty five.

Ductile materials become brittle when cooled below NDT. The accumulation of deformations in ductile materials causes the appearance of cracks, which in time lead to fracture. Fracture is irreversible, but it can be mathematically predicted, and averted with regular maintenance.

John’s hair is long enough to curl at the back of his neck. He is in need of a haircut.

Sherlock is in need of John.

Sherlock blinks his eyes open and picks up John’s wallet from the table. He shuffles through the wet banknotes until he finds the condom pack. He tears off one packet. He sets the wallet back on the table. At the counter, he throws away the teabags, then picks up the tea cups and carries them to the sitting room.

When John comes out of the bathroom, his cup is on the side table by his chair, accompanied by the condom packet. Sherlock’s cup is on the floor by the fireplace, and Sherlock is sitting on the rug between the chairs, warming his feet. The blanket is wrapped around his shoulders and knees. The towels underneath it are still wet, but they have now warmed to his skin.

John comes out into the kitchen, towelling off his hair. He tosses the towel onto the table, comes into the sitting room, and stops.

Sherlock gives him a few moments to take in the scene and get through the first easy conclusions. Then he clears his throat.

“I made the tea,” he says. “Could we dispense with the negotiations?”

John doesn’t say anything. He clears his throat, once. After a while, he comes up and sits in his chair. He picks up his cup, takes a drink. He sits there in silence for a little while, and Sherlock gives him that too. He’s gotten used to John’s pace of thinking – its slowness is predictable in its familiarity and, in a way, soothing. 

He stares into the fire. The concentric circles have widened, seeping through the blanket with their generous heat, but it’s still not enough.

John sets down his cup. “How long?” he says, and he can mean anything and everything. Sherlock deduces based on observation and fact – he dislikes weaving meaning from ambiguous statements.

“Since last Tuesday,” he says.

John laughs softly. “That you wanted to do this or that you decided to do something about it.”

“Imprecise question, imprecise answer, John.”

John laughs again, and Sherlock allows himself a twitch of the mouth. He wiggles his toes and waits for John to make progress in his thinking.

“Is this literal?” says John, after a while. 

“Yes,” says Sherlock, even though it should be obvious: he laid out the little display for John for a reason. In this area, he dislikes metaphor.

“Ah.” The pause is longer, this time, as John absorbs this information. “You know I don’t. Usually. With men.”

Sherlock suppresses a twinge of disappointment. This is not entirely unexpected. He has allowed the possibility that John, while quite secure in his masculinity, would refuse out of a misplaced sense of chivalry. Preservation of their friendship. Protection of Sherlock’s vulnerable heart – or John’s perception thereof, as Sherlock time and again fails to convince him that his motives come entirely from the rational mind.

Still, not an unequivocal no. Chances are that’s because John has no idea what Sherlock is really asking – not yet – and thus he won’t say no right away. Sherlock pulls his feet under the blanket to minimise visual distractions.

“I am aware,” he says.

“You don’t, either,” says John. “Well. You don’t, at all.”

“No,” says Sherlock.

“But you want to, now.”

“Yes.”

This line of questioning is too simplistic. Sherlock stares at his cup of tea. Negotiations are tedious, and ultimately pointless, and at this pace John will never arrive at the conclusion that meets his chosen ideal, which is to protect Sherlock from his own bad choices.

Sherlock knows what he needs. He thought he knew how to ask for it. Maybe he too, had been imprecise.

John is silent again. Sherlock can hear him pick up his cup and take another drink, and he imagines the direction in which John’s thought process is unfurling right now. He times it in his head: John would have said no by now. John would have asked ‘Are you sure’ by – wait for it – now. And now, after a few more ticks of the clock, John would have said—

“And you might not want to, tomorrow.”

Sherlock blinks, momentarily stunned. He turns and looks at John.

John is sitting in his chair, body carefully relaxed. He is holding his tea cup in his left hand. He hasn’t moved the condom pack, hasn’t picked it up, hasn’t even touched it. He is wearing his dressing gown on top of soft pyjama pants and a tee shirt. His hair is standing up in spikes, the collar of his tee is wet, and there are errant water drops gleaming in the hollow of his throat. He is watching Sherlock with very calm eyes.

“You might not want to,” says John, carefully, after Sherlock hasn’t said anything. “Not for a while after this. Am I right?”

Sherlock looks at him. He finds he has no words. 

They’ve known each other for four years, discounting the dreadful gap in the middle, and they’ve lived together long enough to know each other’s most intimate habits. John has never asked him outright, not after that very first evening, so long ago, but he has obviously thought about it, and has now, miraculously, arrived at the correct conclusion.

Slow as it might be, Sherlock will never underestimate John’s thought process again.

“Yes,” Sherlock says, and clears his throat, because his voice doesn’t sound right. “Yes.”

John smiles, and ducks his head. He is pleased, Sherlock thinks. And embarrassed. The conversation has exactly one more turn to take, and John must realise that too, if only on an unconscious level. Sherlock looks away, and shifts under the blanket, lets it open a sliver to let in the fire-warmed air. The need inside him begins to take shape, framed between John’s bare hands and feet, and the wet skin in the hollow of his throat. Simple touchpoints, really, like drops of light in empty space, but it’s enough to string a line in-between. Enough to get to the next level of detail.

“Is this,” says John, and grimaces as he realises the triteness of what he’s about to say. He says it anyway. John also dislikes metaphor.

“Is this because of tonight?” says John. “Because of Huller? Because of how— Because of how he nearly drowned you?” John swallows. He lowers his voice. “Because of how I shot him in the head?”

Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut. Yes, John dislikes metaphor. He is also intimately familiar with the warzone experience: he has lived its practice on the battlefield, and regurgitated its theory in endless therapy sessions. He thus has no qualms whatsoever against throwing the truth in Sherlock’s face in a way that is guaranteed to wake Sherlock up, should Sherlock need waking. Protecting from bad choices doesn’t mean being needlessly gentle.

Sherlock shakes his head. ‘No’ isn’t the correct answer. But neither is ‘Yes’. There have been many events that led to this evening, and they stretch all the way back to the last time he needed this particular brand of medication. Many events, and Sherlock has endured them all – he has absorbed them, processed them, and then painstakingly deleted the irrelevant pieces of each one, until only the distilled data remained.

But they can never be deleted completely.

Take John in the orange blanket. The problem is not with John in particular, or with the blanket’s honestly quite horrid colour. It isn’t in the way snow settled on John’s eyelashes and water dripped off when he blinked. It is not in the bubbles breaking the surface above Sherlock’s face, or in his hands, clutching at clothes, or in the way the clothes were jerked out of his grip when their owner’s body was thrown to the side by the bullet.

_It isn’t in the way the wind billowed his coat while tears streaked his face, or the way John stood below, so small against the wide, wide concrete._

It’s in the persistence of events, the repeated force with which they are applied, and the unrecoverable deformations they leave. Sherlock cannot function properly like this. What he sees doesn’t register correctly, what he thinks doesn’t translate into logical action. The data doesn’t filter like it should. Emotions, sentiment, all the dreaded treacherous _idiotic_ notions start to seep in, because why would Sherlock suddenly contemplate the way John’s hair looks, curling at the back of his neck, while his brain is unable to form a proper sentence, and his hands can’t unbutton his own goddamn cuffs?

Some things never go away, no matter how hard Sherlock tries. They linger, polluting his mind, straining the machine, until his mind splinters and fractures.

Sherlock smiles morosely to himself. It seems one cannot escape metaphor after all.

John is waiting.

“It’s not because of what happened tonight,” says Sherlock. “But it does factor in.”

He looks at John. John is watching him back. His eyes are still calm, and his body is still relaxed. Not a trace of stress, notes Sherlock. Not a trace of remorse, either. John’s hands are not shaking.

You would kill more men for me without a second thought, thinks Sherlock. Chances are, you will, and sooner rather than later.

They look at each other. Sherlock could put on a mask – God knows he has many, some more effective than others; and it wouldn’t take much, just a shift of his brow, a downturn of the mouth, to hit John where his defences are thinnest – but he already knows that is unnecessary. He’s known from the moment John guessed.

Today, Sherlock thinks, you will accept that this is what I need, and you will give it to me. Not because of a whim, not because of long-suppressed desire, but because I asked and because you’re my friend.

John holds his gaze for a moment longer, and then looks down at his tea. He nods, as if to himself, and sets his cup on the side table. “All right,” he says, under his breath. “Okay.”

He slides off his chair, shuffles to his knees next to Sherlock, and sits on his haunches. Sherlock looks at him, intending to ask, to apply some preamble to the next stage of this negotiation, but John reaches out and touches the edge of Sherlock’s blanket, so Sherlock shuts his mouth. John grasps the blanket and lifts it, opening it up more, cracking the warm shell around Sherlock’s body, and looking inside.

Sherlock shivers. John is now looking at his naked skin. The expression on his face has the precision of a doctor, but the attention of a lover. John knows exactly what he wants to do, and how to go about it, and Sherlock allows himself a moment of envy before he remembers that John’s precision and attention are now directed at him, that he is about to become the sole recipient of John’s desire. The thought warms him in the exact way he expected, and in the exact way he needed, tonight.

“Do you want to take this to bed?” says John, quietly.

Sherlock looks at him. John is watching him with those very calm eyes. Sherlock can see his pupils dilating. He shakes his head. _It is warmer here._

John nods, and his eyes drop to Sherlock’s mouth. “Do you want me to—”

“Yes,” says Sherlock.

John cracks a smile. Sherlock smiles at him in return. He stares at John’s mouth, watches the smile begin to fade as John leans in closer.

John kisses him like the kiss is a separate thing, an entity in itself that John has allowed to come into being, and then bestowed on Sherlock’s unresisting mouth like a gift. Sherlock forces himself to relax, notes the softness of John’s lips, their warmth, and the bitterness of the tea over the mint of John’s toothpaste. John isn’t pushing, or tearing, isn’t making this into anything more than it should be: the first touch of their lips, clean and chaste and necessary. He is still holding the edge of Sherlock’s blanket, and their mouths are touching, but nothing else besides.

John pulls back, calm and watchful. “Is this all right?”

Sherlock looks at him, registers the growing array of arousal indicators – eyes, skin, pulse – and zeroes in on the tremor in John’s voice and the pinch in his facial muscles that are inconsistent with the rest of his body. He flicks through possible answers.

“Are you going to keep asking all night?” he says, injecting irritation into his tone. “Because that will get annoying quite quickly.”

John smiles again, and ducks his head. When he looks up at Sherlock again, his face is relaxed, and his mouth is curved in a way that reveals the possibilities opening up in his mind.

The first kiss was a gift between friends. The second is an invitation to an exchange of pleasure. John cocks his head, changes the angle, and Sherlock has to open his mouth to fit. He tastes mint again, and saliva, and it’s a bit wetter this time, and a bit slicker, but the pressure is exactly the same. John is still holding back. He nips at Sherlock’s upper lip, kisses the lower, and Sherlock becomes aware on a visceral level – which is different from the intellectual one, where he’s obviously known all along – that lips are plural for a reason, and as such can be treated separately in a kiss. He breathes against John’s mouth, opens up more, and John pushes in even closer, and then his tongue touches Sherlock’s, and that contact, right there, is what tips it over from clean and chaste, and straight into erotic.

Sherlock makes a small sound between their lips. He is rapidly becoming a vessel to be filled with sensation. He is tuned to one frequency, one input, full bandwidth: the point where John’s mouth works against his, where John’s breath huffs out through his nose and over Sherlock’s cheek. John’s mouth is warm and wet, soft and skilled, so skilled that Sherlock realises he could do this – just this – for hours. It might even be enough to warm him back up.

He intends to tell John just that, to break off and tell John _you don’t have to, this might be all I need_ , but then John’s fingers, where he is still holding the edge of Sherlock’s blanket – where he is holding it open, but not all the way, like Sherlock’s nakedness is a secret to be shared between only the two of them – John’s fingers move to touch the edge of Sherlock’s collarbone, and slide over his skin, very slowly, and it’s this touch that tips it over from erotic and straight into sex.

John pulls back. His eyes are dark, his mouth red, and the expression on his face is one that Sherlock hasn’t seen on him before, and certainly not this close. Sherlock takes it in, commits it to memory.

John looks at his mouth. “Jesus,” he says, very quietly, like Sherlock’s mouth in a sexual context is something difficult to believe in. Sherlock doesn’t say anything, and John shakes his head.

“Literal,” he says, and clears his throat. “Um. Literal, you said. Yes?”

Sherlock blinks at him. His mouth tingles. He loathes repeating himself. It must show on his face, because John laughs – a sharp, brilliant sound, and quite odd, so very close.

“Yeah,” says John. “All right. Wait here, okay? Don’t go anywhere.” And he folds up and goes into the kitchen. Sherlock looks after him, frowning. John crosses the kitchen and disappears in the bathroom.

Oh.

Sherlock shifts in his nest of blanket and towels. He becomes aware of the small aches and pains in his body: his knuckles, where he’s been clutching the blanket, his buttocks, where he’s been sitting on the thin rug on the hardwood floor, his spine, where he’s been holding a position curved sideways towards John, so that John could kiss him.

Sherlock closes his eyes and touches his mouth. Drags his thumb across his lower lip. That was a very good kiss. He hasn’t been kissed this way in a while.

Six years and thirty nine days. He bites the pad of his thumb. Sense-memory of pleasure-pain blooms in his mind. Six years and thirty nine days since he’s let anyone do this. He doesn’t understand why he waited this long – but then again, he never does, in the moment.

“Oh, Jesus,” says John, from the kitchen doorway. Sherlock smiles, eyes closed, and drops his hand from his mouth. John sounds half-desperate, and half-broken, and Sherlock hasn’t made anyone sound this way in a while, either. He opens his eyes and looks up at John.

John sets a tube of lubricant on the side table and shrugs out of his dressing gown. He comes round and sits on the floor again. He settles with his legs out, and his back against his armchair. 

“Come on,” he says, and waves his hand at Sherlock.

Sherlock raises his eyebrows. Interesting position. He wonders at the significance of John choosing this one among many possible others, but he has no data to draw meaningful conclusions.

When he doesn’t move right away, John raises his eyebrows, too.

Sherlock drags the blanket with him when he settles in John’s lap, legs folded, knees on either side of John’s body. The height difference doesn’t help at all – he can see the top of John’s head from here, and how can this possibly be conducive to anything efficiently intimate?

John tugs at the blanket. “Are you going to be cold if I take this off?”

“Yes,” Sherlock says. He considers. “Perhaps later.”

John nods. “Okay. Come here.”

John snakes a hand behind Sherlock’s neck, and pulls him down. Sherlock goes, bends his spine and curves over John – and oh, this isn’t so impossible after all. John kisses him, lightly, on the mouth, and then trails his lips across Sherlock’s cheek and jaw, and down the side of his neck to the crook of his shoulder. He slips one hand under the blanket, and tugs at the towel wrapped around Sherlock’s hips.

“Come on,” says John. “Up.”

Sherlock shifts. The towel comes free. John pulls it out from beneath the blanket and tosses it aside. His lips never leave Sherlock’s neck. His hand comes back underneath the blanket, warm fingers curving around Sherlock’s naked hip, pulling him gently to sit back down. John’s thigh muscles are hard and solid, his skin warm through the thin layer of cotton.

“Shouldn’t you also undress?” says Sherlock, into John’s hair.

John lays a soft kiss on his shoulder. “Mmm,” he says. “Are you always this impatient during sex?”

Sherlock closes his eyes. John’s left hand slides from his hip and up over his ribs, then to his front over his pectorals and back down to this stomach. It doesn’t stray further down, not just yet – John is exploring him, mapping out the shape of his body. Sherlock relaxes into the touch and drops his forehead to John’s shoulder. John is very slow in his thinking, but he is quite self-directed. Perhaps he is slow in this as well. Perhaps in this he will know what Sherlock wants without the need for instructions.

John’s hand slips and slides from Sherlock’s stomach and around to his back, down his spine and further down, to grip his right buttock. It’s not an exploring touch anymore. It’s intent. John’s other hand slides from Sherlock’s neck to his shoulder underneath the blanket, and tugs at his forearm.

“Arms around me,” says John. “Come on.”

Sherlock lets go of the blanket and brackets John’s head with his arms, leans his wrists against the chair behind John’s back. He and John are now both encased in soft fabric, and, hidden as they are from prying eyes, the configuration of their bodies is unmistakable; obvious at a glance what they’re doing, even without any telling movement. Sherlock thinks he could stay like this, for a while.

John snakes his other hand around Sherlock’s back, grips his other buttock, and gently, very gently, pulls them apart.

Sherlock exhales a sharp breath against John’s shoulder.

“Literal,” John says, into his neck. His voice is low, gravelly, and just this side of breathless, and Sherlock understands that John is now fully erect. Sherlock is sitting on John’s thighs, and he is too far to feel it, but he doesn’t need to touch it to know.

He wonders, distractedly, at which point John will direct his attention to the fact that Sherlock isn’t in a similar state. There is a reason Sherlock didn’t want to employ this particular position – he is much better on his knees when he has more time to prepare. He wonders if that is going to become a problem before it ceases to be one – John may be slow in his thinking, but in this context his squeezing hands already say otherwise. Sherlock wonders how much time will be lost if he is forced to start explaining.

John slides his left hand from Sherlock’s back to his front, and proceeds to answer that very question.

His hand is warm and dry, gentle in Sherlock’s pubic hair. John cups him, carefully, rolls the soft tissue of Sherlock’s penis between his fingers. Feels him out. He draws his thumb tenderly over the foreskin, pulls it down, lets it slide back. Sherlock fights the urge to lock all his joints and stiffen his muscles. He fails.

John’s hand on him stills, but he doesn’t let go.

“Do you want me to touch you here?” says John, mouth soft against Sherlock’s neck. He doesn’t sound reproachful, or dismayed. He sounds polite, like he’s asking for his half of the morning paper, or for Sherlock to please give him back his fork.

When Sherlock doesn’t reply, John kisses his shoulder. “Sherlock?”

“Yes,” Sherlock grits out. He wants to explain the time delay of this particular function of his body, but he doesn’t get the chance, because John shifts, turns his head, and sticks his hand out from between the folds of the blanket.

“Hand me the lube,” he says.

Sherlock reaches to the side table, grabs the lubricant and drops it into John’s open palm.

“Ta,” says John, hand going back down between their bodies.

John warms the gel between his palms before he touches Sherlock again, and when he does, he is as gentle and purposeful about it as he was when he pulled Sherlock’s buttocks apart moments earlier. John uses his left hand to stroke him, and his right to hold onto Sherlock’s hip to keep him in place. He’s dropped the lubricant onto the rug, but he’s taken enough that his hands are dripping, sliding slick and warm against Sherlock’s skin. Sherlock closes his eyes, curls his spine, and holds onto the armchair.

“Can you kneel up?” says John, after a while. He’s been stroking Sherlock for at least a full minute, and Sherlock feels warm and obliging, if only half-erect and only vaguely out of breath. He lifts – the movement brings his chest level with John’s lips – and John tips his head forward and takes Sherlock’s left nipple into his mouth.

“Oh,” Sherlock says, and clamps down on the sound of it. He feels John smile against his skin. John’s left hand is still working, slowly, up and down, over Sherlock’s almost-there-but-not-quite erection, and his right hand is now stroking up, on the inside of Sherlock’s thigh, briefly cupping his testicles before sliding further back, slick fingers pressing between his buttocks.

Sherlock exhales, and opens his eyes. The room swims, crystallizes lazily in his blurred vision. He sees his own hands, curled into loose fists on the seat of John’s armchair. The towel and the blanket are still clinging to his shoulders, wet, warm, and heavy. His thighs are trembling, braced on either side of John’s thighs, holding him up, holding him spread open for John’s hand, and Sherlock blinks into the fire-lit flat, and realises with no small amount of dismay the utter absurdity of their position.

People do this all the time, he reminds himself. Day in and day out, they twist their bodies in even stranger arrangements, and touch each other with their limbs and their mouths and their groins. Generate friction. Forget themselves. Lose it.

Sherlock is clinically incapable of losing it. Six years and thirty nine days, and three years and two days before that, and four years and change before that still, and it’s a tried and true method by now, it always works to the degree that he needs it to, and both sides come away having got what they wanted, and if Sherlock is lucky, never see each other again.

But this is John.

John, who lives here, who shares Sherlock’s bathroom and his morning paper, who makes tea and brings groceries and cleans out experiments when he thinks Sherlock has forgotten about them. John, who makes Sherlock’s life just that much more bearable, on bad days.

John, whose breath is now ghosting against Sherlock’s chest in warm puffs, in counterpoint to the slow rhythm of his hand, stroking Sherlock in long, leisurely pulls. John’s other hand is still between Sherlock’s legs, fingertips circling his sphincter in a gentle caress. John has made no move to either touch himself or even rub himself against Sherlock’s trembling thigh. If Sherlock weren’t who he is, he would have no way of knowing if John is even enjoying any of this. 

He fists his hands behind John’s head and tries to breathe through a sudden constriction in his chest.

He shouldn’t be asking for this. He has no right to ask for this. Not with John. He squeezes his eyes shut again, takes a breath—

John leans forward, puts his mouth to Sherlock’s chest, and pushes one finger inside him.

It’s a small tendril of fire, sharp in a way that is not entirely unexpected, but Sherlock’s breath spills out of him in a rush, and the words he wanted to say come out jumbled against John’s hair.

“Yes,” says John. He laughs quietly. “Oh, yes.” 

John’s lips move against Sherlock’s chest, warm and wet. John is kissing him there now, mouth smearing across Sherlock’s skin. His left hand is still stroking, now faster and tighter, and with a bounce at the end of each stroke where John is hitting the base of his thumb against his own ribs. Sherlock translates what this means: he is fully erect now. The pressure in his groin confirms the conclusion.

John pulls out a bit, then slides his finger inside Sherlock again, a short stab of heat and pressure, odd and a little sharper than Sherlock remembers. He moves it slowly, in and out, a few times, and then slides in another alongside the first, and Sherlock sucks in a breath, and holds on to the seat of the armchair. His thighs are now trembling in earnest, and God, it’s undignified, it’s absolutely horrific that he should be wrecked like this already, by no more than a rhythmic application of friction, and not even that much of a stretch. Sherlock doesn’t lose it, he doesn’t take it beyond the level that is absolutely necessary for him to function again. There is no reason for him to be losing it now.

“Do you want to come like this?” says John. His hands are now moving in counterpoint to each other. He might or might not be smiling, Sherlock can’t tell.

John doesn’t need instructions, but he does need reminding. 

Sherlock gathers himself, and rolls his hips, round and down, pressing against the heel of John’s hand – the movement stretches the tendons in his groin in a way that is not entirely unpleasant, so he repeats the motion, and John exhales, soft, against his chest, and pushes his hand up in response.

“All right,” he says, and the breathlessness is back. It’s fascinating, some part of Sherlock’s brain notes from a distance, how John oscillates between enraptured and humorous, from one minute to the next. Is sex with John always like this, bouncing between opposites, between playful and serious, gentle and sharp, planned and spontaneous? How about pleasure and pain? What other dichotomies lie in wait for Sherlock to discover, should he bother to look? What other complexities lie beyond the façade of the easy-going physician, alongside the obvious ones Sherlock knows very well: the remorseless killer with a strong moral principle and, against all odds and logic, Sherlock’s one and only friend?

Sherlock stops himself. He recognizes the pattern. Sentiment. Useless philosophical notions. It’s always like this for him, in the moment. And it always passes, when he’s done.

John is asking him something.

“Hm?” Sherlock says. John’s hands have withdrawn, and are now bracketing Sherlock’s hips. Warm, slick fingers resting motionless on his skin.

“Will you lie back?” says John. “Are you warm enough for that now?”

Sherlock nods, then unfolds his spine, and scoots back along John’s legs. He drags the blanket with him, slides it off his shoulders, and spreads it on the floor in front of the fireplace. He tosses his remaining towel over the seat of his armchair, and goes to stretch himself on his back, propped on his elbows, facing John. He looks up.

John is staring at him.

Sherlock flushes. He is naked, he is fully erect, and he is slick from John’s hands smearing the lubricant over his skin – God, he is slick _everywhere_. His groin feels like a separate part of himself, exposed like a showpiece on display in a curiosity museum, in full light. He fights the urge to close his legs. Six years, he thinks. Enough time to stop being an idiot.

“I am getting cold now,” he says, “so do hurry up.” He dredges up more irritation, but it doesn’t sound convincing even to his own ears.

John smiles again, and pulls his tee shirt over his head. Sherlock lies back and watches him, relieved that the spotlight has shifted.

John strips efficiently, quickly, and tosses his clothes on his armchair. He leans over to retrieve the condom, and tears the packet open with his teeth. He is fully erect, and not self-conscious in the least. Sherlock looks at him, and can’t help but compare – length, girth, level of tumescence. John wins on at least one count, and one that matters, no less. Sherlock wonders how it will feel inside him. Something flutters in his stomach, soft like butterflies.

This time John catches him staring. He smiles, and looks back down to roll on the condom.

“Not something I do every day,” he says. “With, um, blokes. Just give me a sec.”

“You needn’t worry,” says Sherlock, watching John’s fingers (full dexterity, optimal performance). “It’s perfectly adequate for the job.”

John laughs, bright and easy. He kneels, and shuffles over to Sherlock, pulls at Sherlock’s left ankle and sits, legs bent, between Sherlock’s knees.

“You’re a total wanker, you know?” says John. “Come on, scoot over.”

Sherlock shifts on the blanket until his hips are angled up, resting in John’s lap. It’s an easier position to hold, and they both have space to manoeuvre. It can’t be easy on John’s knees, though.

“We could relocate to the bed,” says Sherlock. “If you like.”

John lays a warm hand on his hip. “I’m good here,” he says. “Stop changing your mind.”

Sherlock opens his mouth to protest, because he hasn’t changed his mind about anything, but John chooses that moment to slide two fingers inside him again, and Sherlock decides against speech.

John works him open very, very slowly. He adds a third finger after an eternity of shifting and pushing, adds more lubricant at some point after that. His fingers are sliding in and out easily now, round and out and then back with a push and a twist. Sherlock has closed his eyes, and relaxed into the motions. His arms are stretched over his head, a pleasant change for his spine after being hunched over. The heat from the fireplace paints a long line of warmth across the right side of his body, from the tips of his fingers to the balls of his feet.

It feels good.

John withdraws his fingers, and tightens his other hand on Sherlock’s hipbone. He shifts, and Sherlock feels the touch of slicked latex, and then blunt pressure.

“Aaand in,” singsongs John softly, under his breath, and he pushes inside.

A moment of discomfort, some residual stretch and burn, and Sherlock’s body gives in. John slides deep on the very first stroke, and stops, his hips pressed tight to Sherlock’s.

“Ah,” he says. “Oh, God.”

The pressure in Sherlock’s lungs reminds him he should breathe. He draws in air, lets it out. The heat inside him is half pleasure, half pain, and it’s altogether lovely. The angle works, the depth works, and the curve of his body is easy enough that he can give John leverage and hold himself up if he needs to. 

He waits. John doesn’t move. Sherlock opens his eyes.

John is sitting upright, spine arched, head bowed towards his sternum. His eyes are squeezed shut. He looks like he’s in pain, and waiting for it to pass.

Sherlock licks his lips. “Are you all right?”

John laughs, an explosion of breath, and Sherlock feels the vibration of it inside him.

“God,” says John, blinking his eyes open and looking down at Sherlock. “You’re asking me?”

Sherlock frowns at him. It feels odd, frowning up from this position. “I said adequate, John. I’m sure I will live.”

John grins at that. “That’s not— Never mind.” He closes his eyes, rolls his head on his shoulders. “Oh, God. This feels nice.” He gives a small push with his hips, and Sherlock forgets to breathe again.

“Yes,” he says, when he’s recovered. “Yes it does.”

John gives another small push, and then he withdraws, and glides back in again. They both make a sound. John settles both hands on Sherlock’s hips, then pulls out again, and Sherlock closes his eyes.

John works at it, slowly, for a little while. Sherlock feels every move, every squeeze of his hands, hears every soft exhalation. His own body is now completely relaxed, taking John in with ease, and with just the right amount of friction to start the timer in the back of his brain, counting down. He will need more than this, of course, and he will join in when he is so inclined, but for now, this is nearly perfect.

“John?” he says, and John hums, an acknowledgment and a question. “You don’t need to be gentle.”

To his credit, John doesn’t break rhythm. But his hands twitch at Sherlock’s hips.

“Christ,” John says, and hisses in a breath. His hands relax, and resettle. “Not yet, all right? Not yet.”

Sherlock nods. He stretches out more, then squeezes his abdominal muscles, and savours John’s sharp inhale, and then his laughter, as John squeezes his hip in response, and despite his words, speeds up, just a little.

And it’s good. It’s better than good – it’s effective. Every thrust is a source of friction, is a source of pleasure, is a signal across Sherlock’s nerves and straight to his basal forebrain. Every push of John’s hips moves the needle, inches it up towards the balance point, fills Sherlock up until he is suffused in warmth, inside out.

Tomorrow, he will wake up normal again. The calluses on John’s hands will be a fact of life, not a source of sensation, his breath will be like his every other breath, and his sure glide inside Sherlock will be just something that happened. John will make toast with jam and they will share a newspaper, and then John will rub his hand over his sleep-tired face, and Sherlock will remember his touch, but he will not want it.

And at some other point in his life, when Sherlock is fractured beyond recognition, this will happen again. Whether John will be there for the asking is another matter entirely, and not at all relevant right now, because—

Sherlock feels something sharp and raw come loose in his chest. He can’t breathe.

He covers the hitch in his breath by pulling his arms down, one hand to his nipple and the other down on his belly.

“Are you, oh,” says John, and Sherlock didn’t really plan to, not just yet, but he grips himself all the same, and tightens his fingers.

He is still slick, and it surprises him – he should have remembered – but he recovers without missing a beat. His fist glides easily, and he brings himself back to full hardness in no time at all. John huffs a surprised laugh above him, and his hips press marginally harder on his next thrust.

“You are,” says John, and then, “Oh yes, come on, do it.”

Sherlock does. It isn’t very complex, and he’s had plenty of practice – honestly, it would be quite idiotic to expect someone who needs to know the exact limits of their body in every situation to somehow ignore one particular area. And out of what? Cultural taboo? Sherlock can’t afford such mistakes.

“Harder now, if you please,” he says, eyes still closed, and very pointedly twists his left nipple.

“Oh fuck,” says John, inelegantly, and speeds up. The sounds of their bodies, together, become louder. The heat between Sherlock’s legs and the pressure inside him ratchet up, and the timer in his brain goes into single digits. He plants his feet on the floor, rounds his spine.

“Oh,” he says, and then, despite himself, “John—”

“Yeah,” says John, breathless. “Come on.” His hips are snapping fast and hard. “Yeah, give it to me, Sherlock, come on.”

Sherlock gasps. He holds his breath as he comes, so he hears what John said very clearly. The shudders wreck him, twist him, but he holds on through it without a sound. His mouth is open, and his eyes are squeezed shut, and John’s words drop into his now empty mind and roll around like smooth marbles.

Wrong, he thinks, desperately, through the endorphin rush. I’m not giving you anything. I’m just taking.

He rides the shudders until they ebb away, and then lets his body relax. He drags in a deep breath.

“Jesus Christ,” John says, from above him. “Oh God, Sherlock.”

John has stopped moving, but he hasn't pulled out. Sherlock can hear him breathe, in short, ragged gasps. John’s thighs are trembling. He is stroking Sherlock’s sides – reflex, an automatic, soothing motion – and his hands are shaking. He is very hard inside Sherlock.

Sherlock breathes out, and slowly stretches his arms above his head again. He doesn’t open his eyes. He turns his face towards the ceiling. Soft, submissive. He angles his hips. “Come on, John.”

John’s breath punches out of him on another gasp, and his hands tighten on Sherlock’s sides.

“Fuck,” he says quietly, and Sherlock doesn’t have to look to know the pinch of John’s brow, the twist in the shape of his mouth.

“Yes,” Sherlock says, smiling. “Hard as you can.”

“Oh, God,” says John, and then he pulls out, and slams back in as hard as the position allows.

Sherlock takes it. Intercourse doesn’t stretch much beyond the finish for him, it never has. The timer inside his brain has gone down to zero, and switched off. The needle is back in the balance, the temperature back at the right levels, and the fractures are closing, melting away like they’ve never been there. The bubbles, the snow, the orange blanket – they don’t disappear, they never do – but they retreat far enough to be rendered harmless. Data points in the vast swaths of objective knowledge. Disentangled from the sentiment they were born with. Now wait until the tail end of the hormone flood, and Sherlock will be back to himself.

“Sherlock,” John says. 

“Hm?”

“Touch your mouth for me.”

Sherlock frowns. He is breathing to the percussive beat of John’s hips, too fast and too shallow to deliver quite enough oxygen into the brain. John’s request takes a moment to process, so Sherlock doesn’t think much of it, just draws his hand down, and touches his fingertips to his mouth.

And oh. Oh. There is that.

Olfactory input kicks into high gear. Lubricant, musk and semen, his own fingers wet with it, covered in it, and surely John didn’t intend to—

Dominant hand, Sherlock thinks, this is my dominant hand. I just used it. Logic dictates I would use it again.

“Yes,” says John, tight. “Yes, like that,” and Sherlock gasps, he can’t help it. The rush of air sharpens the scents, mingles them with the firewood smoke, with the chemical smell of soap and shampoo, and John’s sweat, and his sweat, clean and animal and inescapable.

Sherlock wrenches his eyes open.

John’s face is contorted and sharply focused above him. The pinch in his brow and the shape of his mouth are exactly as Sherlock predicted. His flushed skin, however, and the way his hips work and work and work, the muscles in his arms straining—

John is watching his face. No, his _hand_ , Sherlock realises. John is watching Sherlock’s hand that is touching his mouth, like he is waiting for Sherlock to do more with it. To go further.

A thought coalesces like a new drop of light in the black.

_This is what John likes._

Sherlock has not considered what John liked before. 

He draws his fingertips over his lower lip, experimentally, and watches John’s eyes darken. He draws his thumb over his upper lip, after that, and gets a sharper snap of hips, and John’s nails digging into his skin, blunt and painful. John never breaks rhythm, though, and his eyes never leave Sherlock’s face; they track with the movement of Sherlock’s hand like it’s a target.

The look goes straight into Sherlock’s gut. It makes his skin heat up, impossibly warmer than it already is.

He feels his hand begin to shake. It makes no sense, the endorphin rush is already wearing off, and he isn’t that tired. But his hand is shaking at his lips, and he can have none of this, so he opens his mouth and he bites down on the pads of his fingers, just a little, just to stop them shaking – and just to feel the familiar tingle of pleasure-pain, and maybe to refresh the sense memory, get a new blueprint over the old blueprints of sex in his mind, overwrite them with this: sex with John.

John, who likes his sex just a little bit dirty. It’s a… new thing to know, about John. Sherlock’s only friend, the killer, the easy-going physician, doesn’t usually go at it with men, but when he does, he likes to see them do things they wouldn’t normally do, in full daylight. Get just a little indecent, tarnish the immaculate image, dirty up the perfection – and Sherlock is perfection.

With a sudden, powerful surge that can be nothing other than desire, Sherlock realises he wants to know what else John likes to do. He wants to, he needs to know how far he could take this. How much would John allow? They could practice, like this, with John reacting to small things, then bigger things, and God knows Sherlock can be creative when he applies himself to it. They could try. Sherlock could try.

But John is too close to release, there is no time for anything too complicated, not now, but perhaps tomorrow—

Tomorrow, Sherlock thinks. Tomorrow I will be normal again.

He keeps his eyes on John’s, opens his mouth, and slowly, very slowly licks the palm of his hand.

John groans, and thrusts into him so hard Sherlock slides a few inches back across the floor. Sherlock drops his hand to steady himself, but John grabs his hips and pulls him back up, and immediately drives into him again.

It almost hurts. Almost. What John has in girth he doesn’t make up for in length, though, so Sherlock will be perfectly fine. Sore, perhaps, but that’s par for the course. He angles his hips to give John more leverage, braces with his left arm against the leg of his armchair, and, eyes not leaving John’s, raises his right hand to his mouth again, and licks between his fingers.

“Fuck, Sherlock,” says John, more air than sound, and finally, finally breaks rhythm.

John’s face in ecstasy looks like all faces do – uncontrolled, twisted, and just a little bit funny – but Sherlock commits it to memory none the less. He will analyse it tomorrow, when he can deal with such things without immediately wanting to see them again.

John slows the roll of his hips, drops his head, and shudders above him, the last of his orgasm wringing him out. He is very warm, very sweaty, and flushed all over. His hands are sticky where they hold on to Sherlock’s hips. His belly is trembling against Sherlock’s groin.

“Oh,” John exhales, deep. “Oh my God.”

Sherlock drops his arms to the floor.

Slowly, they disentangle. John rolls to the side, half on Sherlock’s blanket and half on the rug. He tugs and ties off the condom, holds on to it while he gets his breathing back to regular pace. Sherlock straightens his legs, exhales and looks up at the ceiling.

After a while, John gets up and walks, naked, to the bathroom. His legs are shaking, just a little. Sherlock watches him go.

He doesn’t move while John cleans himself up in the bathroom. John flushes the condom down the toilet, washes his hands, and between his legs. He dries himself with a towel. Sherlock doesn’t see him do any of that, but he might as well – the images are clear before his eyes where he isn’t focusing on the ceiling at all.

Something happened, just now. He is certain that with sufficient application of logic he would be able to tell what it was. The whole encounter is stored in a freshly emptied compartment in his brain – they always are, until it’s time for them to be replaced with the next one – so he has ample material to work with.

Except he doesn’t want to.

Instead, he wants to follow John into the bathroom, wrap his arms around John’s chest from behind, and press his naked, semen-soaked belly to the soft curve of John’s spine. John would gasp, and twist his mouth in a way that is irritating but also eminently endearing, and maybe he would pretend that it was disgusting, what Sherlock just did, or maybe he would twist around and push Sherlock down, and then—

And then Sherlock would find out some other things that John likes to do.

Sherlock closes his eyes. This is not helping.

Tomorrow, he thinks desperately. Please, let it be tomorrow.

Soft footsteps shake him back to the present. John, hopping on one foot, getting his clothes back on. Picking up his cup, gulping down his by now probably lukewarm tea. Sherlock suddenly feels very thirsty. He doesn’t move.

A coarse touch at his belly. He startles, and opens his eyes.

John is kneeling next to him, cleaning him up with Sherlock’s own towel. He notices Sherlock watching and smiles.

“Feeling better?”

Sherlock swallows. He looks around for his tea cup. It is sitting on the floor by the fireplace, untouched. It’s a miracle they didn’t tip it over, during all this.

“Yes,” he says, propping himself on his elbows. His hand is not shaking when he picks up his cup and drinks. The tea is indeed lukewarm.

John balls up the towel and sets it aside. “That was good then, was it?”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “You know it was.”

“Yes.” John’s eyes crinkle. “But I want you to say it.”

Sherlock looks at him. There is nothing in John’s eyes but gentle inquiry. Gone is the flush of arousal, the dilated pupils, the too-fast, shallow breath. Like the switch in John’s brain that makes him lust after men has summarily turned off, and Sherlock’s body has ceased to be the object of his desire. What John needs now is deeper than that – validation, acceptance. And a little bit of stroking of ego, perhaps. Sherlock can do the last one, no problem.

“It was good, John,” he says. And then, because it’s only fair to follow up if he’s already started, “Thank you.”

John stands. “Good. Great.” He gestures down at Sherlock. “If you ever need to do it again, you know, um.” He smiles. “You know where to find me.”

Sherlock looks up at him. _Need, not want_. He still isn’t thinking straight, but he does notice. John is smiling at him like he doesn’t have a care in the world. His legs have stopped shaking, and his hands are steady, now propped on his hips, but Sherlock knows John’s steady hands when he’s tired are the same steady hands right after he’s killed someone and therefore mean exactly nothing at all.

 _Do I break your heart_ , he thinks, out of nowhere, out of some deep recess of his brain that has not yet fully come back online. Do I break your heart when I take like this from you and then have nothing else to give, after?

He shudders. He is getting a little cold. His back hurts. He rolls his head on his shoulders.

“Bed might be a good idea now,” says John, and holds out his hand.

Sherlock looks at it. John is dressed, he has put himself back in order. His teacup is empty. His feet are bare. His hand—

His hand, the one he touched Sherlock with, the one that touched Sherlock _inside_ , is now offered in—what exactly is John offering now?

Sherlock holds out his hand and lets John pull him up to his feet. For a split second, they are very close.

John lets him go, and steps back.

“Goodnight, then,” he says.

Sherlock looks at him. He feels very naked, and – completely irrationally – very tall. He doesn’t usually hunch his shoulders in John’s presence. He is hunching them now.

“Yes,” he says. “Goodnight.”

John smiles, and turns on his heel, and goes up to his bedroom. Sherlock stands in the sitting room for a little while.

He knows exactly what just happened. His brain is back to its normal function, and the conclusion is so obvious his teeth hurt with the banality of it.

Sentiment. Useless philosophical notions. It is always like this for him, in the moment, and when the moment passes, it’s gone. This time, it’s holding on a little longer than usual, but it will pass, of that Sherlock is certain.

He gathers his blanket, wraps it around his shoulders, and heads for his bedroom. He leaves his unfinished tea by the fireplace, and his soiled towel still balled up on the floor.

John will clean them up in the morning.


End file.
